Investigating the impact of the company's internal logistics capacity and logistics outsourcing on the company's performance in the electronic business environment in Iran Khodro

Dissertation for Master's degree

Orientation: Finance

Abstract

In today's era when the global business environment is rapidly changing and evolving, companies are looking for ways to differentiate themselves from other competitors at the national and international level. In this regard, companies adopt various strategies. It can be acknowledged that one of these strategies is the downsizing of organizations. Considering this issue, Iranian companies and organizations are also forced to downsize their bodies in order to gain a competitive advantage, remain in the national markets, or move towards global markets, and in this regard, one of the tools used by advanced countries is "outsourcing".

In the present study, an attempt was made to investigate the effect of the company's internal logistics capacity and logistics outsourcing on the company's performance in the electronic business environment in Iran Khodro. The research was conducted in terms of practical purpose and in terms of the nature of the causal method. The society studied in this study included managers of Iran Khodro Company. A questionnaire was used to collect information, which was randomly distributed among 170 managers, and 147 questionnaires were collected and analyzed. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire was confirmed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient and the opinions of professors and researchers in the field of management. The structural equation technique was used to analyze the data.

The internal logistics capacity of the company has a positive effect on its performance in the e-commerce market and the use of outsourcing logistics activities. The outsourcing of logistics activities has a positive effect on the company's performance.

1-1 Introduction

What is presented today as logistics in organizations and is actually an integrated process of the supply network; In other words, forecasting, planning, coordination and implementation of activities such as: transportation, warehousing, handling and distribution and packaging during the movement of materials, parts and products in the supply network along with the flow of information along the supply network are carried out by logistics management and as it is known, its successful implementation results in the productivity of production operations and the provision of services to increase the competitiveness of organizations in today's era. Therefore, logistics managers and officials will prove their effect on the success of their organization by implementing logistics management. And since the concept of business unit (company, institution) is also changing. Organizations have abandoned secondary and sideline activities to focus on core activities that bring greater commitment to unique value. Thus, greater external dependence requires attention to inter-organizational communication to coordinate activities and processes, also considering that many economic regulations of transportation and telecommunications are declining and giving way to markets based on a combination of service types such as contract logistics service providers that include transportation with Warehousing is remote communication, product collection and related services. There are various areas of logistics services that a company can outsource to another company to perform those activities. Recent research has shown that in traditional logistics activities such as transportation (transfer) outside the company, preparation of invoices and audits in cargo transportation, warehousing, transportation within the company and distribution of cargoes are often outsourced. Other important outsourced activities include coordination in docks, small production activities, product marketing/classification and packaging, product recovery, high-traffic management operations, and transportation and information technology (Chu and others [1], 2008, p. 338). Also, today, e-commerce shipments require a new infrastructure distribution method to operate online (online) e-commerce, and often these new needs are outsourced and provide opportunities for contracting logistics, and in this way, and most likely with the continued growth of e-commerce, the importance of internal and outsourcing logistics capabilities will increase (same source, p. 337).

1-2 statement of the problem

The distinctive feature of today's business world is known by the acceleration of its changes, which has taken the opportunity of any stagnation from all active economic sectors. Organizations have changed fundamentally and are no longer similar to yesterday's organizations. Among the fundamental changes in the structures and behaviors of organizations is the networking of their activities. Therefore, various economic businesses around the world are looking for ways to maintain and develop their competitive advantages. In recent years, the outsourcing method has been used as one of the successful and effective approaches in the development of competitive advantages, especially in large organizations. The rapid development and compatibility of the Internet or the Web as a marketing tool has brought the concept of electronic business to market transactions. The Internet has emerged as a dynamic medium for conducting transactions between customers and companies in a virtual marketplace. The increasing growth and development of the Internet has become a phenomenon, and there has been a related growth in e-commerce in this field. In addition, communication using wireless networks, known as Wi-Fi, seems to have created more potential for e-commerce, so that nowadays you can easily access the Internet from anywhere using a notebook. Therefore, e-commerce and new marketing channels created by the Internet have had a profound impact on how to do business and provide logistics services.

Logistics capabilities, which are part of a company's resources, include all capital, capabilities, organizational processes, company characteristics, information, knowledge, etc. that allow the implementation of strategies that improve efficiency and effectiveness (Barney, 1991). In many researches, logistics capacities have been investigated relatively large and important measurement scales have been developed to relate this capacity to competitive advantages and improve the organization's performance. These researches have found that logistics activities affect company performance by increasing revenue and reducing costs. However, not much study and research has been done empirically regarding the relationship between logistics capacity and company performance in the e-commerce environment.

Therefore, considering that effective and efficient supply chain management is very vital for the success of organizations involved in e-commerce, the purpose of this research is to investigate the impact of the logistics capacity and outsourcing of the company's logistics activities on the company's performance in e-commerce, and the researcher tries to provide appropriate answers to the main research question:

Is the situation of activity outsourcing Is the company's logistics only related to internal logistics capacities? 1-3 The importance of research The emergence of the phenomenon of globalization and increased competition and the motivation to survive in the markets has led many countries and organizations to focus their activities on basic productions and core capabilities. One of the changes that can be observed in this process is the increase in the share of outsourcing. Organizations with supply chain management to increase their competitive advantage focus on special and dedicated steps that provide more added value for the customer and the organization. Thus, in order to achieve success in this field and achieve a competitive advantage, the need to conduct scientific research in this field is felt. It will mean that given the competitive nature of a particular product or service in the market, if it is not supported by an array of products or services, it will ultimately fail. Morillo (2001) has shown that success in e-commerce requires the use of many complementary assets, the most important of which are computers, the Internet, satellite technology, funds and logistics services. Hupperts and Foster (1999) have stated that the success of companies in electronic markets depends on the efficiency of distribution networks. The effective and efficient movement of goods in the e-commerce logistics supply chain is very critical.

This research deals with the basic capacities and performance of companies and includes three measurement structures, which are logistics capacity, logistics outsourcing and company performance.